Are you interested in building future board members who understand your agency and know how to be nonprofit leaders? I believe that this is vital to the continued success of any nonprofit. Here’s a interesting approach to developing these young leaders.
One of my current clients has created a Leadership Board. This is a group of younger men and women, many just at the beginning of their careers. Since this agency is a mentoring program, they have access to a lot of younger people, 25-40. The agency decided to reach out to these mentors and their friends and invite them to become future leaders of the organization.
The Leadership Board had its first meeting this week. They have structured their meetings to include one major leadership training item, one item that will help them better understand the agency, its services, and the business of running the organization.
This week the topic was how to become a facilitative leader. We focused on the differences between the for-profit and nonprofit cultures. We then discussed how a facilitative leader can both motivate and hold other volunteers accountable. The group was spell-bound. When asked what intrigued them the most, many indicated that it was the idea of always being concerned with succession planning, which is the training of your successor as you do your work.
These future leaders then received an update on all the fundraising activities taking place and how they could help. They have volunteered to work on the agencies committees, as well as set up committees of their own. They left the meeting revved up and raring to go. We successfully tapped into their fresh energy, enthusiasm and talent.
I did this same thing with another young group in another city. After several years, some of these young leaders took up positions on the Board of Directors. The Board was so impressed with the sophistication and knowledge of these new individuals that they decided they needed a leadership program for themselves.
This is a way to build leadership development into the fiber of your governance and assure that your agency will have committed and knowledgeable people for years to come.
Any other good ideas out there for leadership development.?
Tags: Barrie, future leaders, journal, Leadership Training